Sunday, June 22, 2014

Head too heavy? Grow wings!

Say Hello to a Horned Dinosaur With 'Wings' on Its Head

The latest name in dinosaurs is
Mercuriceratops gemini — a bizarre horned dinosaur that had a frill so
wide it looked the wings on the Greek god Mercury's helmet.

At least that's what the
scientists who named the beast thought. That's how they came up with
the genus name, which is derived from the Greek for "Mercury
horned-face." The 77 million-year-old plant-eater is described and
classified in a paper published online by the journal Naturwissenschaften.

The "gemini" refers to the fact that almost identical twin specimens of
the species' skull were found in north central Montana's Judith River
Formation and Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park.